Love Wins: A Critical Review – Part 1

God’s Love and The Cross


Given the title, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, and the content of the book, I am confident that Rob Bell’s foundational thesis is buried in a statement he makes regarding hell:

We do ourselves great harm when we confuse the very essence of God, which is love, with the very real consequences of rejecting and resisting that love, which creates what we call hell. (p 177)

Rob Bell’s thesis is that the very essence of God is love. The word 'very' has several meanings, but the way in which he uses it here is a common use, and it means ‘complete and absolute.’ He is using this to describe the essence of God, that is, what God is in his being. To say that the very essence of God is love is to say everything that God is in and of himself is nothing else than love. Love controls God; nothing He does, thinks, says is contrary to love because it is impossible to be otherwise without contradicting Himself.

This verges on saying that Love is God, but I doubt that Bell would go that far. God is a Trinitarian being, one essence that exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. I can agree from a Trinitarian perspective that the very essence of God is love because each person of that one essence loves the other supremely. But that is not what Bell is talking about. He is talking about God’s love toward objects outside the inter-Trinitarian fellowship. He is talking about God’s love for his creation and in particular for that creature made in his image, man and woman.

To say simply that very essence of God is love is to make a statement that is not very clear and raises a serious question, If God is completely and absolutely love, does that mean He has no other attributes?

I readily admit that is an absurd question, but the asking of it points to the absurdity of the idea that God in his essence is completely and absolutely love in relation to his creation. The very fact that by divine fiat (God said, ‘Let there be light.’) God brought the creation into being out of nothing clearly reveals his omnipotence and omniscience not to mention his sovereignty (Romans 1:20; Psalm 19:1-4a).

I think Bell would affirm these attributes to one degree or another. But in doing so, he faces some serious challenges, which he either glosses over or ignores outright.

If God does have these other attributes then how can Bell be so dogmatic that love is the essential attribute of God? If the attributes of omnipotence and omniscience are granted, then we must also consider other attributes such as God’s holiness and justice (seeing that the Bible does so, Psalm 99:3, 5, 9; Isaiah 6:3; Habakkuk 1:13; 2 Timothy 4:8; Revelation 4:8; 6:10; 16:7; 19:2).

I mention holiness and justice in particular because I think Bell does not understand them aright and therefore does not appreciate their impact on the very things he talks about in his book: heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived. Bell’s flawed conception of these unfavorably affects his view on the love of God and divine punishment.

Bell’s position is one-sided. It is not the love of God alone that has direct implications for punishment, but the holiness and justice of God do as well. If God is utterly holy and absolutely just how can He not hold men accountable for their sins and inflict everlasting pain and suffering for their heinous offenses against Himself?

Bell’s answer on the one hand is that God simply cannot do that, for that kind of God, who would consign a man to unending torment for sins committed during a mere life-time, is unloving and cruel.

Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number “make it to a better place” and every single other person suffer in torment and punishment forever? Is this acceptable to God? Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God? (p 2)

The biblical answer to each of these questions is a resounding Yes! and I plan to show how so in a later article.

On the other hand, Bell’s answer that prohibits everlasting punishment is the cross of Christ, but his assessment of the cross is superficial. He spends no time exegeting the passages that he cites, he simply states the text without any explanation of its meaning in terms of its context or corpus of belief held by the writer. Regarding the cross he tallies so-called metaphors that the New Testament writers use to explain the cross. It is a sacrifice that does away with all other sacrifices (pp 123-126), reconciles all things to God (p 125), pays the price to free guilty sinners (p 126), destroys death and overcomes the world, (p 126), and buys back (redeems) something that was lost (p 127). Bell is very earnest to convey the idea that these metaphors were adequate for their time and place in history and culture, but we should not be limited to them:

The point, then, isn’t to narrow it [the meaning of the cross] to one particular metaphor, image, explanation, or mechanism. To elevate one over the others, to insist that there’s a “correct” or “right” one, is to miss the brilliant, creative work these first Christians were doing when they used these images and metaphors. They were reading their world, looking for ways to communicate this epic event in ways their listeners could grasp.

The point then, as it is now, is Jesus. The divine in flesh and blood. He’s where the life is. (p 129)

If I understand Bell’s message here, the so-called use of metaphor makes all the New Testament renderings of the meaning of the cross dated. Important as they were in their time, they are not so useful for us now. Their real usefulness in the New Testament world, as it should be now, is to make a point about something deeper, and that point is “...Jesus...where the life is.” An arcane pronouncement, which Bell makes no diligent effort to elucidate.

To place the various perspectives of the New Testament writers of the cross on the ash heap of outworn metaphors and images is telling of Bell’s superficiality when it comes to hermeneutics (the interpretation of scripture). It is particularly exposed with the metaphor of sacrifice. Bell cites Hebrews 9:26 as an example:

We read in Hebrews 9 that Jesus “has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (p 123)

Bell explains this as a metaphor to counter the centuries old practice of pagan ritual sacrifice whereby a peaceful relationship between us and the gods was hopefully attained:

That’s how it worked. Offer something, show that you’re serious, make amends, find favor, and then hope that was enough to get what you needed.

So when the writer of Hebrews insisted that Jesus was the last sacrifice ever needed, that was a revolutionary idea. To make that claim in those days? Stunning. Unprecedented.

Whole cultures centered around keeping the gods pleased. This was obviously a very costly, time-consuming ordeal, not to mention an anxiety-producing one. You never knew if you’d fully pleased the gods and paid the debt properly. And now the writer is announcing that those days are over because of Jesus dying on the cross. Done away with. Gone. Irrelevant.

The psychological impact alone would have been extraordinary - no more anxiety, no more worry, no more stress, no more wondering if the gods were pleased with you or ready to strike you down. There was no more need for any of that sacrifice, because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice that thoroughly pleased the only God who ever mattered. (pp 124, 125)

For the New Testament writers, sacrifice was not a figure of speech by which the pagan might come to understand the folly of his ritual and abate his fear of never appeasing the gods. Nor was the imagery of sacrifice a random notion that seemed a likely choice to make Jesus intellectually or culturally palatable to his hearers.

Sacrifice was not a metaphor. Sacrifice rose out of the history of redemption, namely, the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. For the writer to the Hebrews, the cross is without meaning if it is not understood in the light of Old Testament sacrifice, and if Bell had been honest to include the context of the verse he cites, he would have had to bring the meaning of Old Testament sacrifice into the sacrifice of Christ:

Of this, John Murray writes:

It lies on the face of the New Testament that Christ’s work is construed as sacrifice. And the only question is: what notion of sacrifice governs the pervasive use of the term sacrifice as it is applied to the work of Christ? This question can be answered only by determining what was the notion of sacrifice entertained by the New Testament speakers and writers. Steeped as these were in the language and ideas of the Old Testament, there is but one direction in which to seek their interpretation of the meaning and effect of sacrifice. (Redemption Accomplished And Applied, p 24).

Murray then expounds the meaning of sacrifice on the basis of the Old Testament ritual, in particular, the Day of Atonement.

I am making a special point regarding Bell’s hermeneutic because it should throw up a red flag. If he so blithely misconstrues the purpose of New Testament writers in the explanation of the cross in this one aspect - sacrifice - can he be trusted with his assessment on other aspects. Does he have any real understanding of the nature and scope of Christ’s death as the once-for-all satisfaction for the just punishment of God for the sins of his people? Does he truly understand the meaning of 1 Peter 2:24:

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.

Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour (February 2011) - Day Three

The God Hater, by Bill Myers.


Thanks to Simon and Schuster who kindly provided a copy of the book for review on the CSFF blog tour.

The success of the ‘project’ that Travis, Rebecca, and Hugh are involved in stands or falls on the preservation of free will. Whatever goes into the making of that world, or into a solution that addresses a problem, it must not influence the choice that a cyber-human may personally make and, by extension, what the collective community may agree to do.

It is curious that no one ever deduced that, given such a definition of free will, the programmer violated it with the first If..Then statement. A computer program of any complexity will have what are called conditional statements, that is, if a condition proves to be true then one course of action will follow; but if it is false, another course. It is decision-making at a very low level. Given the same set of information and conditions, a computer program will do exactly the same thing every time, without fail. It has no other choice because it has no mind of its own.

The cyber-world of Alpha at its innermost being is a complex of rote execution making every aspect of it a slave of unalterable habit. Yet, out of this rose characters who attained “emotions, pattern recognition, free will, the ability to hold contradictory views.” (p 45) Granted, they did not rise by a cyber-evolutionary mechanism; Travis says outright that he created them. But it is uncanny that such a versatile, intelligent, and freethinking cyber-entity could possibly come into being out of a make-up that is thoroughly bound to the will of another, regardless of how intelligent the ‘other’ is.

What exactly is free will? Must there be absolutely no outside influence in order for a decision to classify as having been made purely out of a free will? If that were so, there would be no such thing as free will.

A choice made out of free will does not mean it is a choice made blindly. My son may be considering three colleges to attend, and I may have a strong opinion about a certain one, offering argument after argument as to why that should be his choice. Even if those arguments prove effective, and my son chooses that college, his free will has not been violated. He freely chooses that college because, for whatever reason, that is the school that he wants to attend. It is his choice. I did not make the choice for him. Even if I threatened to disown him if he chose another, and as a result he chose contrary to what he would prefer, he is still exercising the choice freely. No one else is making the decision; it is his and his alone.

That’s why Adam’s deflection of blame to Eve is disingenuous, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate," Genesis 3:12. External influences did not absolve Adam’s guilt - he made the choice to listen to Eve and eat of the fruit. The same thing can be said for Eve - she listened to the serpent, was deceived by him, but it was her choice to eat in disobedience to what God had said. The serpent was unable to force Adam or Eve to eat against their will. It had to be the choice of each alone. Otherwise, they would not have been accountable, and man would not have fallen.

How heinous it is then, when we read of the King of Tyre (Lucifer/Satan): “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you.” Ezekiel 28:15. A being made perfect in every way and having nothing but the most advantageous external influences was found at a point in time to have iniquity within. Unfathomable mystery. No wonder there is no purpose of God for his recovery.

So then, free will does not exclude external influences.

Free will and the Sinner

The scriptures say that there is none who does good (Romans 3:12) and that the carnal mind (the mind devoid of the Spirit of God and therefore unregenerate and unconverted) “is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be,” Romans 8:7; and “those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” Romans 8:8.

If the sinner is unable to do good, then he has not the free will to do good. But he does have the free will to do evil. He can only sin, and the choice to sin and the manner of sin is out of his own free will. No one forces the sinner to sin; he does so freely of his own choice and not of another.

Free will and the Saint

The saint is truly free, that is, he has the ability to choose good and resist evil. As a sinner, one can only sin; as a saint, one has a choice, to resist the temptation to sin, and do the good; or to succumb to temptation, and do the wrong.

The Cyber-Incarnation

There may be some mystery about the transfer of Nicholas’s personality into a newly created cyber-human, but the mystery is only that of a limited understanding of what and how nanobots work. And when all is said and done, the real Nicholas is still a real human, and nothing of him or in him is united to the digital Nicholas.

The mystery of the incarnation of the Son is not resolved through a keen knowledge of physics. The union of God and man in one person defies explanation; it is comprehensible in that one can conceive of a unity of the divine and human, but it is incomprehensible in that the unity itself is inexplicable.

The apparently supernatural power that the digital Nicholas exercised was ad hoc, programmed to meet an unexpected exigency in the cyber-world. The power of the incarnate Christ was for the most part not his own as the Second Person of the Trinity. Part of the humility of the incarnation was the reliance upon God the Holy Spirit to perform miraculous works, just as any human miracle worker of God did. The Spirit’s attendance of Christ is well documented, and because Christ's extraordinary works of power had its source in the Holy Spirit (not his own), the accusation of the Jewish leaders that Christ performed his wonders by the power of Satan was an unforgiveable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

The transfer of information to the cyber Nicholas explains his apparently instant knowledge about events and persons whom he had never met. In the New Testament, we have a peek into the nature of the communication between the Father and the Son. In John 12:28, Christ asks the Father to glorify his name, to which the Father responds audibly, in a voice some took for thunder, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” Jesus explains that the voice was for their (the people who heard the voice) sakes. On that one occasion, it pleased the Father that others heard what Christ heard constantly.

The God Hater confronts the reader with some heavy philosophical and theological ideas. Whether these would be a challenge to the Atheist's faith, I'm not sure. But it may cause him to pause and think about some things that he never thought about before, and that could be the starting point of a journey to understanding.

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Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour (February 2011) - Day Two

The God Hater, by Bill Myers.


Mr. Myers lays out a disclaimer in his author’s note: Then there’s that whole pesky issue of allegories. They only capture pieces of truth and are way too slippery to do much more. So, just as I would encourage you not to base your science upon this [the novel’s] science, the same should go for your theology. As I said in my novel Eli...if something doesn’t sound right or sticks in your throat, don’t waste your time reading this. Go to the original Source and see what it says.

This statement implies two things: that (a) at least some of the theology behind The God Hater may be wrong or (b) though it is not wrong, it is either confusing or contrary to the reader’s own views, in which case the reader is advised to go to the Bible and investigate the point of disagreement or confusion.

This brings us face-to-face with the constant concern of every Christian writer, that he conveys accurately the teaching of scripture on any given theological subject. Granted, there are theological truths that are difficult to understand, as Peter reveals about some of Paul’s epistles (2 Peter 3:16). And since we are not inspired writers in the same way that the holy apostles and prophets of the New Testament were (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20, 21), we cannot guarantee that what we write is completely accurate.

Nevertheless, it is our responsibility to be as accurate and faithful to the truth of scripture as possible. If we find that we have difficulty in conveying that truth in the context of our novel, or through the imagery of its characters and events as in the genre Christian fantasy, it is better to abandon the effort and pursue something different.

A major difficulty for me is the employment of a Christ figure. Donita K. Paul’s Paladin of Dragonspell is an example. I found the character Paladin repulsive. The New Testament Christ was the one who declared (exegeted) the Father in all of his ways such that even a facial expression was revelatory, let alone body language. Paladin was a buddy-buddy type of fellow having none of the sacred sobriety of the biblical Christ. It is a questionable decision to include such a figure because it runs the risk of not conveying the character of God accurately; it tends to create a god in our image. It approaches blasphemy. A more extreme example is The Shack (Wm. Paul Young, a million-copy best seller), in which the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are fleshed out in terms of trite, crass behavior and profane human interactions, and the theology, in my estimation, is heretical blasphemy.

I want to trace broadly the events that take place in The God Hater from initial creation of a cyber-world to the intrusion into that world in the form of a cyber-incarnation. This is to provide a context for some thoughts on certain theological points that are affected by those events. Those thoughts will appear in my third post for this blog tour.

The cyber-world (c-world) is initially characterized by artificially intelligent cyber-humans (c-humans) capable of emotions, pattern recognition, free will, and holding contradictory views (p. 45). There must be no external interference. The free will of the c-human cannot be violated. Each philosophical system must grow organically from within the system (p. 67). This reduces to a survival-of-the-fittest mentality and as a result, c-world ends in self-extinction; c-humans kill each other off in the effort to survive (p 66).

Solution #1
Introduce dualism, the awareness that there is the material/physical on the one hand and the spiritual/metaphysical on the other. In Dr. Nicholas Mackenzie’s words, it is “the understanding that there are higher thoughts with higher standards than a simple materialistic world.” And, “It’s a belief in a greater good without the tyranny of a meddling dictator.” Travis’s lay interpretation is, “Just give them a sense of a greater reality.” Rebecca’s enhancement to Travis’s understanding is to give them “an interconnectedness to that Reality. They need to feel that what they do affects everything-- including themselves.” (pp 80, 81).

Solution #1 Fails
Exercising free will, c-humanity chooses nature over technology, i.e., nature is sacred and must not be meddled with. Travis astutely summarizes the three possibilities with regard to nature: (a) It is divine, (b) there is no difference between it and c-humanity, or (c) it is not real. Whatever view one takes, there is no compelling need to exercise authority over it (p. 97). As a result, rats are allowed to run wild leading to rampant disease, which results in the eventual extinction of c-humanity.

Solution #2
Rebecca postulates that the c-humans must not only be told about another reality (our world) but also about the humans of that world, about us, and that we have the answers for their survival. This is not considered cheating because it is telling the truth. Nicholas Mackenzie, the atheist philosopher, grudgingly acknowledges this inwardly:

“Nicholas’s jaw tightened. She was right, of course. The solution couldn’t be more obvious. At least now. And he hated it. He hated every aspect of it. An outside intelligence, a god, offering them assistance from outside their model. But it was true. They were watching and they could assist. Like it or not, that was the whole truth. And if Nicholas stood for anything, it was truth. Everything else was just fantasy and make-believe.” (p 100)

Again, free will must be preserved. Just inform c-humanity of our existence and give simple guidelines, nothing more (p 103).

The Implementation of Solution #2
Through Travis’s ingenious programming, Nicholas is able to speak directly to Alpha, a c-human (the cyber equivalent of Nicholas’s son who was killed years earlier) and thusly reveals his existence as Programmer, who programmed Alpha’s world. The immediate response of Alpha was to ask, “What do you want?” Programmer’s (Nicholas’s) reply is to exercise authority over his world. Alpha is sacred because he was programmed like real humans. The rats are not sacred; they are the cause of their dying. Alpha’s response to this revelation and charge is to react violently toward the rats and destroy them. Alpha is further charged to treat other c-humans as sacred, treat them as he would treat Programmer. (p 113-115)

The expectation is that Alpha would expound upon the basic rules of Programmer and apply them to various situations. This is exactly what happens. Alpha begins to develop a system of interpretation and application of Programmer’s basic Law. Programmer is elevated to a deity and a temple is erected in his honor.

The Introduction of The Virus
Rebecca places doubt in the mind of the c-woman, Saida, wife of Alpha, to question the authority of Programmer’s law and think of how appealing it would be to decide for herself what is right and wrong. She leads Saida to the back of the Temple where she presents a wealth of information via the internet. Saida and a growing number of others are drawn to this source of unlimited knowledge. Now, c-humanity has an alternate guide, based on an alternate source of knowledge from which they can pick and choose as they please. Programmer’s Law is no longer absolutely authoritative.

The Need for Personal Intervention, the Cyber-Incarnation
The virus infected c-humanity internally, in their minds. To erase it would be to interfere with their thinking and therefore with their free-will. The alternative is that someone speaks to them directly, that is:

“We create another member of their community. We download one of our own personalities into it so we can talk to them face-to-face; show them how they’re supposed to live.”

“You’re not serious?”

“Sure. That way, they still have free will. But instead of laying a bunch more rules on them, our guy talks to them in person. He stresses how important it is to resist the virus and follow our instructions. And--this is the kicker--he shows them how to live those instructions the way we originally intended.”
...
“It’s impossible to adequately capture every nuance of truth with words. To convey the truths of life...you have to live that life.” (p 143-144)

Dr. Nicholas Mackenzie’s mind is recorded (via nanobots) and transferred into a newly created c-human. The c-human is the cyber-incarnation of Mackenzie.

The Nature of the Cyber-Incarnation

(1) Otherworldly insight. c-Mackenzie receives instant information about his world and certain individuals in it. He learns of personal things about his fellow c-humans that are known only to them. He knows what is in c-man:

Travis continued, “She ran away when they tried making her pay on the Grid. Ever since, she’s been living with whoever gives her life units.”

Nicholas motioned to the main screen, where the image of himself and the girl were still frozen. “Go ahead and tell him that. Let him know.”

This time Travis gave no argument as he worked the keys. “Transferring her bio to him now.”

When he’d finished, he hit another key, bringing the original scene back to life.
...
Nicholas blinked. With his sudden information, he addressed the girl. “You were just a child, Dortha. It was not your fault.”

Her eyes widened, then squinted suspiciously. “How do you know me?” (p 172)

(2) Otherworldly power. c-Mackenzie receives the ability to heal from Travis who programs it into his cyber makeup. But to heal, the pain of the injury must be transferred somewhere else in order to keep the integrity of the program. It can’t be transferred to a rock, because the rock can’t feel the pain. It can’t be transferred to the one who inflicted the pain because it would coerce them into obeying out of fear and destroy their free will. The only solution is to transfer it to the one who heals, to c-Mackenzie himself. But in order for it to be fair to c-Mackenzie, it must be voluntary; he must be made aware of the suffering it will cause him, and he must freely choose to take the suffering on himself. (p 195)

Free will is a recurrent them in this overview, and I would like to discuss it in my next post. Additionally, I would like to comment on the nature of the cyber-incarnation as opposed to the biblical incarnation.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster who kindly provided a copy of the book for review on the CSFF blog tour.

The God Hater book link
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Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour (February 2011) - Day One.

The God Hater, by Bill Myers.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster who kindly provided a copy of the book for review on the CSFF blog tour.

Artificial intelligence is the pursuit of both fantasy and science. The God Hater by Bill Myers, is a literary effort of the former, whose purpose is to bring salient truths to light regarding the nature and character of man, human free will, and the existence of God.

The story begins with a locally televised show called God Talk where one of the main characters of the novel first appears, Dr Nicholas Mackenzie, atheist and professor of philosophy at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He proceeds to embarrass and demolish another guest, a pastor of a large church who is on the show to talk about his new book. Mackenzie argues the well-worn favorite objections of atheism to religion. Interestingly, those objections are briefly addressed later in the book, not by a Christian, but a former student whose faith was destroyed by Mackenzie himself.

Another main character is Dr Annie Brooks who teaches Molecular Biology and is a fellow professor at UCSB. Annie is a Christian, albeit a single mother. Annie and Nicholas are actually friends though their antithetical world and life views clash from time to time in the classroom. Nicholas visits Annie periodically having a special interest in her son, Rusty, having lost his own son years earlier.

The third personality is Travis (Nicholas’s brother) who becomes involved in a research project funded by a ‘bazillionaire,’ as Travis describes him. The project succeeds in creating a computer program akin to today’s games but in which the cyber-characters are far more advanced having “artificial intelligence...emotions, pattern recognition, free will, the ability to hold contradictory views,” (p. 41) and so on. The purpose of the project is to provide industry with a test environment to determine what to expect from the consumer, i.e., how will a certain product fare.

The project runs into its problems early on. Cyber-mankind knows only of the basic premise, survival of the fittest, which is exercised consistently always resulting in self-extermination. With no intervention allowed by the developers, and with no other input, the cyber-humans always destroy themselves. Travis brings his philosopher brother in to resolve the problem. The single restriction: there must be no violation of the cyber-humans' free will.

To get beyond this, Nicholas offers the solution to make the cyber-humans aware of a greater reality, introducing brute dualism, the view that there are two realities, the physical and metaphysical. This doesn’t violate the cyber-human’s free will, it simply makes them aware of non-physical realities and it is to be their choice alone as to how to live in light of it. Nicholas is convinced this will change the pattern of self-extinction.

This fails also, and Nicholas is called in again. The problem is that the cyber-world chooses to hold ‘nature’ in highest esteem and therefore allows it to carry on without intrusion. This leads to the spread of disease through rats who run free. Eventually, cyber-mankind dies out through pestilence.

Nicholas ponders the problem and comes up with a solution that he’s not entirely comfortable with: make cyber-humanity aware of a higher authority, the authority of Programmer (Nicholas, though he is not actually the programmer), who in turn charges the cyber-humans to take control and become stewards of their own world. The rationale: they, the cyber-humans, are more sacred than the world (nature) itself; they must exercise authority over it.

This too has its problems and the solutions that follow come uncomfortably closer and closer to a theistic view, so much so that eventually one from Programmer’s world enters into the world in cyber-incarnated form. The incarnate personality is none less than Dr Mackenzie himself.

Interwoven into this is corporate espionage and betrayal, and the intriguing factor that the key cyber-human is Mackenzie’s own lost son who becomes the authoritative interpreter and applier of Programmer’s decree.

Non-Christian and Christian philosophy constantly clash, though the language used to express this is dubiously similar to biblical language. The incredulity of the language is especially stark as it is used by non-Christian characters (e.g., “You are sacred because you are programmed to be like us”;  “Treat one another as though you are sacred. Treat one another as you would treat me.”)

The novel presents the reader with a number of profound philosophical issues with the intent to demonstrate that the resolution of those issues is found only through a Christian, biblical approach. Yet this is done in such a non-technical way that the average reader, with some effort, can readily sort them out.

The story itself makes the book a fair page-turner. This in spite of the characters being stereotypical and predictable, and the writing itself, average.

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Living By Every Word That Proceeds From the Mouth of God - Part 11

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Discerning God’s Will: Santa Clause and the Holocaust


(This is part eleven in a series that examines the view of Justice Boshoff who advocates that God’s word comes to us personally and directly from the Holy Spirit through prayer for wisdom and that the scriptures are a hindrance to hearing the word of God. You can read a transcript of two of his You-Tube videos: According to the Scriptures, You Won't Make It and Breaking Through the Bible Barrier.)

Throughout this series, we have argued that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are necessary for discerning God’s will, and that even Justice Boshoff, who disparages the scriptures as the means to know God’s will, relies on the scriptural word itself to defend his position - a contradiction if I ever saw one.

What does it mean to discern (know) God’s will? Usually the question is asked with regard to a specific matter such as, Should I attend this college or that college? Should I marry Wendy? Should I marry Bill? Should I buy this car or that car, or keep the old one for now? Should I be an architect, an engineer, a soldier, an entrepreneur, a politician, lawyer, doctor, athlete, and so on. As far as I can tell, Justice Boshoff would say, that we need to hear a word from God, personally, through prayer, and that the scriptures are a hindrance in hearing that word.

Consider this, Should I tell my children that there is a Santa Clause, and that on every night before Christmas, he flies around the world in a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer delivering toys to good little children, and that he knows if you’ve been bad or good? There are many Christian parents who tell their children precisely this. [1] Some of those parents may think that the matter is trivial and the consideration of its propriety unnecessary - it’s all just a part of growing up and makes Christmas a more wondrous time for the child.

But is it trivial? Not when we want to be sure that all we do is in accordance with the will of God and that forces the question again, How do we know the will of God?

There are some things about which we do not have to pray for wisdom, because we already have the answer in black and white: ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,’ Exodus 20:16, Deut 5:20. This is a prohibition to testify or say a word against one’s neighbor that is not true. Whatever statements are made about your neighbor, they must not be lies. The principle beneath this command is that God forbids lying and requires that we speak the truth. Succinctly stated, the command not to bear false witness presupposes the command, ‘You shall not lie.’[2]

In light of this, the necessary question a parent should ask: “Is telling my children that there is a Santa Clause a violation of the commandment not to lie?” The prayer for wisdom at this point is for discernment regarding that question. Justice Boshoff would say that we must wait for a word from the Holy Spirit, dispensed through prayer. But we hold that the word, which comes from the Holy Spirit, has already been spoken, and it is recorded in the scriptures.

In seeking to know God’s will through the Bible, there are often times when the answer is not straightforward, that is, there is no single statement that determines one way or another whether an anticipated act on our part is morally right or wrong. In the Santa Clause case, we are confronted with two problematic questions:

Does the Bible indicate there is ever a time:

(a) When not telling the truth is actually not a lie?
(b) In which God would condone the telling of a lie?

As a writer of Christian fantasy, I am concerned with (a). There are those who condemn Christian fantasy because at bottom, they see it as a lie (Christian Fantasy is an Oxymoron). The idea is that since a fantasy may have such characters as talking animals, or flying horses, or wizards and witches with magical powers, and that since these characters are not real but a blatant fabrication, they are in reality a lie. There are reasons I do not think Christian fantasy is a lie, fundamentally because it is not an attempt to deceive but to tell a story whose characters and circumstances happen to be fantastically fictional, which fact the reader is fully aware. But in order for me to write fantasy as a Christian with a clear conscience, I have to evaluate what the scriptures say on a variety of things in order to discern God’s will on the matter.[3] And likewise must the parent assess biblical tenets (based on a reading and analysis of the scriptures) in order to determine whether he may or may not tell his children the fantasy of Santa Clause.[4]

As regards (b), one might contemplate Nazi Germany. Suppose you are a Christian living in Germany around 1942 and you know that the neighbor across the street is providing sanctuary for a Jewish family. The Gestapo call you into their station and bluntly ask you if you know of anyone in the neighborhood who is protecting Jews. You may refuse to answer which is a certain sign that you know something. Given the ruthlessness of Hitler’s secret police, not only would it go bad for you, but almost certainly, the neighborhood would be turned on end until the Jews are found. What do you do?

Suppose you are the one who is protecting the Jews in your house, and the authorities, suspicious that Jews are being sheltered somewhere, come to question you. You are asked, “Are you hiding Jews in your house?” If you answer yes, not only are you in trouble, but you have certainly sealed the death of those who are trusting in your protection. What do you do?

If there is any scriptural warrant in which God condones lying, we must either find a direct prophetic word saying so, or as is often the case, discern the principle through the historical narrative of scripture. Is there such an example?

The case of Rahab and her lie to those pursuing Israeli spies whom she was hiding in her apartment in the city wall is a prominent candidate. Was she wrong in telling those seeking the spies that the spies had already departed thus sending them on a wild goose chase, giving the Israelis the opportunity to escape? There are some who say she did nothing wrong; others say that lying is not condoned under any circumstances and that she was wrong, though it did providentially work for the good of the spies and the nation of Israel.[5]

Rahab illustrates how an answer to a specific question regarding God’s will in a given situation [6] is not always straightforward. We need not an inward spiritual word from the Holy Spirit (as Justice Boshoff holds), for he has already spoken in the scriptures. What we do need is enlightenment from the Spirit, that he may open our eyes of understanding through the scriptures, Eph 1:15-19; Ps 119:18.

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[1] My parents did, and the Easter rabbit too, which rabbit I was smart enough to rule out because it was an animal – but Santa Clause? Well, he was a person, a human as far as I could discern from the testimony of my parents and other adults who confirmed that testimony. As a child of four, Santa Clause’s humanity made it all plausible...so long as I ignored the flying sleigh and reindeer.

[2] The presupposition of an underlying principle is also present in the command not to commit adultery (Exod 20:14, Deut 5:18). This command forbidding adultery is based on the ordained sexual behavior created at the beginning in Adam and Eve, husband and wife. This created order excludes premarital sex, homosexuality (male and female), and in its purest prohibition, the inward lusting of another for sexual pleasure, (Matt 5:27, 28: You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I [Christ] say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart).

[3] See my article, The Literary Genre of Fantasy and Its Use in Imparting Christian Truth which considers some of the Biblical support for the genre.

[4] Christian fantasy has fantastical characters like Santa Clause, and one might argue that if it is not wrong to tell such a tale, then it is not wrong to tell your children that there is a Santa Clause. But there is an obvious difference - your children think Santa Clause is real and believe in him; the reader of Christian fantasy knows the characters are not real and does not believe in them. This matter of faith is at the heart of the problem for as Christians we are to bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4) - Christ is the object of faith, not Santa Clause.

[5] I am inclined to think that Rahab’s lie was condoned by God. There are those who do not deserve to know the truth, and to tell them the truth will make you complicit in their evil intentions and deeds. But we have to be very careful that we don’t use Rahab’s example to lie willy nilly because it is convenient. I would say that only under such dire circumstances as Rahab’s or the Holocaust can one even consider the possibility of lying. I have never been in such a situation.

[6] I am not advocating ‘Situation Ethics,’ the idea that the factors of a given situation determine what is a morally right or wrong course of action. Such a philosophy allows an ‘anything goes, as long as it hurts no one else’ or ‘one must do what is best for himself’ ethic. This leads to all kinds of evil behavior such as abortion on demand. Taken to its logical end, it allows one to establish his own relative standard of right and wrong on the premise that ‘what is wrong for you may not be wrong for me,’ a logically contradictory premise.

My use of the word ‘situation’ is a statement of the obvious – we seek to know what God’s will is for us in our situation now and we do that in part through examining how God worked in a situation of an event of the past, Rahab being an example.

Living By Every Word That Proceeds From the Mouth of God - Part 10

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The Davidic Example as an Antidote to Boshoff’s Disapproval of Scripture

(This is part ten in a series that examines the view of Justice Boshoff who advocates that God’s word comes to us personally and directly from the Holy Spirit through prayer for wisdom and that the scriptures are a hindrance to hearing the word of God. You can read a transcript of two of his You-Tube videos: According to the Scriptures, You Won't Make It and Breaking Through the Bible Barrier.)

Psalm 1:1, 2 (Counsel and the Law of the Lord)

David rejects the advice and wisdom of the ungodly man. His point of view is that the ungodly man's wisdom is contrary to the Law of God and therefore contrary to God's revealed will.

For David, advice and wisdom come through the Law of God, the scriptures of his day. True and acceptable wisdom in the eyes of God is the wisdom that he imparts (as opposed to the counsel of ungodly men), and the source of that wisdom is the Law of the Lord.

If David had in mind a singular work known as 'The Law,' we may surmise that work to be Deuteronomy, commonly called ‘The Book of the Law.’ [1] More broadly, given a conservative view, the scriptures of David's day was the Pentateuch (Genesis - Deuteronomy), Joshua, Judges, and possibly Ruth; Job is also a likely candidate since it may be the oldest book of the Bible.

The appellation of ‘The Law’ used by Jesus probably is a reference to the Pentateuchal writings, but at the least, it refers to Deuteronomy. But that it refers to more than a single volume is discernable in Jesus's use of the formula, ‘The Law and the Prophets,’ in which he distinguished the Old Testament prophets (major and minor) from ‘The Law.’ This suggests that ‘The Law’ was a collection of sacred writings in the same manner as the prophetic books.

If ‘The Law’ is such a collection, it refers not to just the ten commandments per se, but also the history leading up to their official codification as well as the history that followed, i. e., the recorded history of the Pentateuch. That history provides the redemptive historical context of the ten commandments. The relevant point for our discussion is this:

David understood that the Pentateuchal record of the application of the ten commandments in the early history of redemption were beneficial to him as well and served as instructive in his day.

In Psalm 119 David uses a variety of terms to identify what it is that he delights in and meditates on; they are God's word, testimonies, commandments, statutes, law, rules, precepts, wondrous works (in redemptive history) all of which were in the scriptures of his day. These scriptures in which David delighted and on which he meditated included God's dealings with mankind in particular situations at various points in redemptive history. David meditated on the record of that history of an earlier time and saw in it instruction and guidance. He did not think it was irrelevant to his day or his situation.

Psalm 1:2 (The Relevance of the Law for David)

Those who say that the scriptures are a barrier to understanding God's will should think on Psalm 1. Meditation on God's word/law is the Davidic example. David testifies to the profitability of the scriptures to make the simple wise, to enlighten the eyes, rejoice the heart; the judgments of the Lord are more desirable than fine gold and sweeter than honey (Ps 19:7-10). David tells others of God’s marvelous works (Ps 9:1; 26:7; 66:3, 5; Ps 71:17; 73:28; 77:11, 12) which are recorded in his scriptures. In Psalm 119, David tirelessly exalts the virtues of God’s Law, bemoaning the transgression of it (119:136), hiding it in his heart that he might not violate it (119:11), acknowledging the need for God’s help to keep it (119:33-38, 125), thankful for affliction because it brought him back to it (119:67, 71, 75, 92, 143); becoming wiser than teachers and sages (119:99, 100).

Psalm 78, a contemplation of Asaph, suggests that the wondrous works that David proclaimed to others were those that God performed in Israel’s midst as recorded in the Pentateuch.[2] Even if the works David had in mind were those recent victories over Israel’s enemies, battles in which he himself participated, he understands the significance of those victories only in the light of the historical word of God written before his day, in particular, the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. David relied upon the relevance of the scriptures for his day.

Psalm 1:2 (Delighting in the Law of the Lord)

David delighted in God’s Law and continually meditated on it (Ps 119:5, 23, 27, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148). David also meditated on God’s wondrous works and his majesty (Ps 63:6; 77:12; 143:5; 145:5) which were revealed to him through the scriptures of his day. If the written word of God was not applicable to his situation, why did he hold it in such high regard? Why did he devote so much time and effort in meditation on them?

The Davidic example does not suggest to any degree that the inspired writings of his day were obsolete, irrelevant, inappropriate, or a barrier to spiritual wisdom and knowledge.

[1] The Book of the Law is amply documented in the Old Testament (Deut 17:18; 28:58, 61; 29:21; 30:10; 31:24, 26; Josh 8:31, 34; 23:6; 2 Kings 14:6; 22:8, 11; 23:24; 2 Chron 17:9; 25:4; 34:14, 15; Nehemiah 8:1, 3, 8, 18; 9:3) and there is no reason to think that David did not have it in his day. The Lord charges Joshua: This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. David followed Joshua’s example to meditate on the Law of God. The Book of the Law was probably a reference to Deuteronomy (Paul cites Deuteronomy in Gal 3:10 and refers to the source as ‘The book of the law’), and its biblically documented existence argues in favor of rather than against the existence of other Pentateuchal books in David’s time.

[2] In Ps 78, Asaph reflects on not only God’s redemptive acts in bringing Israel out of Egypt, but also on the rebellion of Israel during that time. This reflection was intended to be instructive to the Israel of his day. He did this in accordance with the Deuteronomic charge to teach the children and their descendants so that they may never forget God’s great redemptive acts (Ps 78:5, 6; Deut 4:9; 6:20, 21). Asaph not only contemplated God’s great works in the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, but also pointedly mentions the constant rebellion of Israel in spite of God’s mighty works; certainly, Asaph was concerned about the Israel of his day, that the people would not likewise fall into the same sins. A principle we may take from this is that the scriptures of an earlier day are applicable to a situation of a later day.

Living By Every Word That Proceeds From the Mouth of God - Part 9

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The Promise of the Spirit to Guide into All Truth, Part 2.

(This is part nine in a series that examines the view of Justice Boshoff who advocates that God’s word comes to us personally and directly from the Holy Spirit through prayer for wisdom and that the scriptures are a hindrance to hearing the word of God. You can read a transcript of two of his You-Tube videos: According to the Scriptures, You Won't Make It and Breaking Through the Bible Barrier.)

The disciples were the main body of the apostolate. Part of Christ’s earthly ministry was to prepare them for that special office. When Christ made the promise to his disciples that the Spirit would guide them into all truth (John 16:12-15), it anticipated their role as apostle. Christ made the promise directly to the Twelve, but broadly, it included those who were not of that circle but, nevertheless, were to fill the yet-future office of apostle.

The case of Judas Iscariot. Peter broaches the issue of Judas’s demise and explains to the assembly that, as prophesied in the Old Testament, Judas fell from his office and another should replace him:

"For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ' Let his dwelling place be desolate, And let no one live in it'; and, ' Let another take his office.' Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection."

And they proposed two: Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, "You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place."

And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles. Acts 1:20-26

Matthias, who was not of the original twelve, was chosen to replace Judas. He was a qualified candidate because he accompanied the disciples during the whole ministry of Christ, from the baptism of John until he was taken up at the ascension. In answer to the Eleven’s prayer, the divine choice of Matthias was made through the casting of lots. The promise of the Spirit to the disciples now included Matthias.

Matthias is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament. But Peter’s salient points regarding the need for an apostolic replacement argue that the special office of apostle was peculiar and limited, and only one with special qualification (personal accompaniment of the Lord in his earthly ministry) was acceptable. Because Christ made the promise of the Spirit directly to his disciples whose later identity was that of the exclusive apostolic body, and because the nature of their apostolic ministry cohesively fulfills that promise, there is strong warrant to take that promise as limited to a few of the first century apostolic era.

That the office of apostle was not exclusive to the original Eleven is evident in Matthias, whose appointment was revealed through the casting of lots. There was another who, though not one of the original disciples, nonetheless, became an apostle by divine appointment.

Paul’s Apostleship and Its Relevance to Christ’s Promise to Guide Into All Truth. It was through the special office of apostle that Christ’s teaching, which began while on earth, was completed after his ascension. Perhaps the role of the apostle is best understood in terms of Paul’s apostleship.

Paul’s call to be an apostle is undeniable. He was an apostle on the same level as the original Eleven. The fact that he did not participate in the day-to-day instruction of Christ during his earthly ministry, as was true of Matthias, did not negate his apostleship, for Paul had personal interaction with and instruction from the risen Lord:

But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Gal 1:11,12; cf 1 Cor 9:1, ‘Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord’).

This appears to have happened shortly after his conversion, and very possibly somewhere in Arabia:

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Gal 1:15-17.

Paul’s apostleship was equal to Peter’s:

...they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter (for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles). Gal 2:7,8.

The apostolate, of whom Paul was a member, had an authority that none others shared, including the prophets. The New Testament prophets were agents of God’s word, but nowhere do we see a prophet exercising the authority of an apostle. Paul exercises his apostolic authority in the church in absolute terms: Paul ordained (cf 1 Cor 7:17) certain practices regarding a variety of matters: one’s calling as a slave or freeman, marriage and remarriage, sexual behavior between married couples, the mixed marriage of a believer and unbeliever (1 Cor 7), the question of eating meat offered to idols in a pagan ceremony (1 Cor 8-10), the administration of the Lord’s supper (1 Cor 11), the regulation and practice of tongues (1 Cor 12-14), the place of women in the Church (1 Cor 14).

As a conveyer of truth into which he was guided by the Spirit (in keeping with the promise of Christ), he explained the nature and significance of the resurrection (1 Cor 15). Paul orders the churches in Galatia to amass a collection for the saints in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1,2; cf Rom 15:25-27). An order requires an authority behind it, and such was Paul’s order having the authority of an apostle.

The Mode of The Spirit’s Guidance Into All Truth. The fulfillment of the promise of the Spirit to guide into all truth is not described as coming through an internal word in response to a prayer for personal wisdom; it is through the sovereign external communication of the Spirit to the apostle who in turn is to communicate that to the church:

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery... Eph 3:8, 9.

Other examples come to us.

1 Cor 7:40, when Paul expresses his authoritative judgment regarding widows and remarriage; that judgment came as a result of the Spirit of God’s guidance on the matter:

“But she is happier if she remains as she is, according to my judgment --- and I think I also have the Spirit of God.”

1 Cor 2, in which Paul repeatedly assures the Corinthians that his original preaching ministry to them was not words of man’s wisdom, but the revelation of God’s Spirit, and Paul expressed that revelation in words that the Holy Spirit taught:

And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God, 1 Cor 2:4, 5.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, 1 Cor 2:12, 13.

For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ, 1 Cor 2:16.

1 John 1:1ff, where John explains that what they (the apostles of Christ) had seen and heard from Christ they declare to the saints among whom the readers of his letters were included. The whole letter, as with all other New Testament inspired writings, is the written record of the Spirit’s bringing to remembrance of not only what Jesus had taught them but also those things that he had yet to tell them but did not before his ascension.

The Spirit’s guidance into truth was promised to a few whose ministry was to make that truth known through preaching and, more permanently, through writing. In light of Paul’s remarks cited above regarding the Spirit’s instructional role, it appears that the Spirit’s guidance into truth for the apostles was akin to the way the prophetic word came to the Old Testament prophets, who spoke as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit, 2 Peter 1:21. That word came in the act of speaking publicly; in the case of Paul, and the other apostles, it came through public preaching. It was not a word that came inwardly and privately in response to prayer, as Mr. Boshoff teaches.